ABSTRACT
As part of the societal recycling of depleted oil fields, assessing whether a petroleum hydrocarbon detected in soil samples is a crude oil or a refined petroleum product has increased in importance. Neither federal nor California regulations list soils containing crude oil to be hazardous wastes. Crude oil can be left in place provided it can be demonstrated that it is not hazardous and that there is a low likelihood of migration to the water table. Time and economic constraints of a typical site investigation call for use of data provided by standard analyses available from state-certified and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contract laboratories. The results of an EPA Method No. 8240 analysis are reported in a computer printout from the mass spectrometer data system with chemical abstract number, compound name, concentration in either ppb or ppm, as appropriate, and detection limit.
